(Trinidad Express) The former wife of murdered US war veteran Balram “Balo” Maharaj was yesterday ordered extradited to the United States for her alleged involvement in his kidnapping in 2005.
Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar, in making her ruling, said she was satisfied that the State was successful in having a prima facie case made out against Doreen Alexander-Durity, 47.
Defence attorney Daniel Khan, on a previous occasion, made a no-case submission. stating that the case against Alexander-Durity was based solely on the evidence of an unidentified witness who was also an alleged co-conspirator of his client.
“The defence asserts that the evidence of “CW-1″ (the witness), though relevant, should be rejected by the Court on the basis of it constituting an effrontery to the Court as it was procured under circumstances which cast severe aspersions on the motivation and credibility of the sole witness rendering it manifestly unreliable,” Khan had stated in his written submissions.
The matter was being heard in the Port of Spain Eighth Magistrate’s Court and was prosecuted by attorneys Larry Lalla and Sunita Harrikissoon.
Following the ruling, Khan told the court he would be making an application for a writ habeas corpus before a High Court in order to prevent Alexander-Durity being extradited.
In late 2009, she was indicted in the United States for Maharaj’s kidnapping by a grand jury at the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Washington DC.
The three-count indictment alleged that she, along with Anderson Straker and others, conspired to kidnap both Maharaj and his son Dinesh Maharaj between the period January 1 and February 28, 2005.
The indictment also alleges that Alexander-Durity aided and abetted the seizure or detention of Balram Maharaj in order to compel a third party to pay a ransom between March 1 and April 15, 2005, resulting in his death.
In November of 2009, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) met with Alexander-Durity in this country as they sought to have her willingly agree to be prosecuted in the United States but she declined.
On November 5, last year, Straker, 37, along with six other Trinidadian nationals—Zion Clarke, 33; former Defence Force Special Forces soldier Ricardo De Four, 38; Kevon “Ketchit” Demerieux, 28; Kevin “Shaka” Nixon, 33; Wayne “Ninja” Pierre, 42; and Christopher “Boyie” Sealey, 39—were all sentenced to life in prison by Judge John Bates in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
They are all currently serving their sentences in a United States prison.
Prior to the 2009 trial, four others pleaded guilty to two charges: hostage-taking resulting in death, and conspiracy to commit hostage-taking resulting in death.
